[Interest] QML Presentation System, detailed docs & roadmap?

[Charley Bay]

Gunnar's post on his "QML Presentation System" in 2011 was absolutely
inspiring, IMHO:
http://blog.qt.digia.com/blog/2011/05/30/a-qml-presentation-system/

At the time, (and still now), I viewed this as a *brilliant* application of
QML that would ultimately be a better approach for creating presentations
than any of the existing commercial "presentation-software" out there.
 Very clever idea, with great potential.

Correct me on any of these points:

=WHERE HOSTED

*- It's on both Gitorious and GitHub ... I guess both of these are being
maintained?
  Gitorious: (last commit May-2013):
http://qt.gitorious.org/qt-labs/qml-presentation-system/source/171c7228d39e5fcb7d034f3f6bbb82ad61a33eb8:
  GitHub: (last commit May-2013):
https://github.com/qtproject/qt-labs-qml-presentation-system

=OTHER SIMILAR PROJECTS

It looks like it inspired "Quickshow", which I think might now be abandoned?

http://www.ohloh.net/p/quickshow

Not sure if it also inspired other efforts?

=EXAMPLES AND DOCS

IMHO, the Git repository is adequate:  The README and examples are good.
 (Minor "nit" is that the examples run fine on Win7/Qt5.1, the
"printslides" project builds/works fine, but I failed so far to get the
"Src.pro" project working -- not sure how I'm supposed to use that yet).

I think the best "training/existing-docs" is actually Gunnar's original
video in his blog entry (and reading the QML source itself).  I have some
questions on how some of these QML files are intended-to-be-used (e.g.,
what files to copy-and-change for new presentations, what to use as-is
through library-import for "reusable-slide-definitions", how to physically
organize files and extend standard slides for library-imports, etc.)

Most of these questions, I'm sure, relate to my current mis-understanding
as to how to standardize/productize QML file collections as
generic-reusable-libraries (I'm delving into that now).

=ROADMAP -- ?

Is there one, or interest in one?  I think there is *HUGE* potential here.

For example:

(A)- Establish good (more detailed) documentation:

  (1) A theory-of-op for how it works.

  (2) Productization of existing QML-presentation-types
(bundled/ready-to-deploy) so the user can merely "import-modules" for
standard-presentation-types; (e.g., "standard-module-namespaces", etc.)

  (3) Document minimal steps to create a new presentation, including
provided "Hello World" example (using import-module from (2))

  (4) How to "override/customize" the "standard" QML-presentation types to
modify default behavior, with example implementation

  (5) How to "extend/add-to" the "standard" QML-presentation types (such as
to add new "slide-types" or "slide-transitions"), with example
implementation

(B) Centralize presentation "Theming" so colors/fonts/etc. can be changed
in a single spot for use across the presentation; enabling standardized
"themes" that can be applied to a presentation.

(C) Add new capability, such as using an OS or plugin-interface that
auto-detects and establishes display resolutions, default fonts, etc., and
style-izes the presentation at load/run-time to the local
projector-or-computer.

(D) Create a "QML-bundler" that establishes a self-executing presentation,
or that "deploys" the QML-files collection needed to present

(E) (Possibly) Create a QML-code-generator that generates the QML files for
a presentation by reading in some "resource" information that describes the
slides.  (This is less-necessary if the user can mark-up minimal QML files
directly; and more-necessary if the user is expected to copy-and-paste
files to change the contents for a new presentation.)

(F) Create a QML-Presentation-Authoring interface (e.g., IDE or GUI to
manage slides)

(G) ...etc.

=WEB INFO / EXAMPLES / BLOGS I MISSED?

I'm rather surprised that web searches didn't turn up more on Gunnar's QML
Presentation System, like blog entries, tutorials, presentation examples,
etc.  Can anyone point me in that direction?  (Surely I missed them
somehow?)

At present, I'm still trying to understand "how to use it" in the case
where I need to create many presentations, and I want to share much of this
logic across presentations.  The "examples" run fine, but I don't
understand and fail to run the "src/Src.pro" (how am I supposed to use
that?)

Gunnar suggested "patches welcome!" in his original blog post, so I'm
trying to better understand the "use-metaphor" so I can help there.  (I'm
particularly interested in creating/helping-with the tooling to make it
approachable to idiots, because I'm an idiot.)  However, I thought it best
to start with asking about:

"What is the current status-and-plans for this project?", which IMHO:

*- It's awesome *now*, but I want *more*

*- A little bit of docs/tools would make it more approachable

*- I can't understand why it's currently not being used for more
presentations, as it seems like a superior metaphor/design (but perhaps not
sufficiently "productized"?)

--charley
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.qt-project.org/pipermail/interest/attachments/20130906/2b690422/attachment.html>